Honouring Eketāhuna soldiers and their horses

• Date: 23 November 2020
• Author: Steve Carle
• Published date: 23 November 2020

Terry Kingi from Canterbury led the Anzac Mounts Charitable Trust to Nireaha, with an impressive line-up of seven horses ridden by troopers. He works with ex-servicemen who have suffered with PTSD and takes people out with his horses - they learn about caring for the horses and ride them. He even takes the horses into rest homes.

Denise Clifton (one of the troopers) had done a couple of events with Terry before. Being on the Eketāhuna Mellamskov Museum Committee with Karen Barber, she was able to give a recommendation when Karen said “wouldn’t it be amazing to have the Mounted Rifles up here”.

After some local fundraising to pay for the horses to come up from Canterbury, the Troopers were formed in time for Margaret Parsons’ recent Civic Award as a Guard of Honour.

“Terry brings an awareness of the Mounted Rifles - 11,000 horses went into WWI and only a handful came back,” said Bridget Wellwood, curator at Eketāhuna Mellamskov Museum.

“Being in the desert, they had diseases. If they weren’t shot after their war service, they would have been sold to traders and worked to death. Soldiers preferred to shoot them, given the choice, after serving with them in battles in Sinnai and Palestine in WWI.

“In one battle in WWI the horses were made to lie down with the riders and let a train full of armed Turks pass by at night. One of the Turks spotted them and thought they were rocks.

“Horses went from New Zealand to Cairo into camp. A lot of the Mounted Rifles’ men fought at Gallipoli but didn’t take their horses with them and went on to fight in Europe.

“Following the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War in 1899, everyone rallied to rush to help the Empire. There was a huge wave of enthusiasm for volunteers, they set-up militia groups all around New Zealand with the aim of training men to go to war.

“Because the basic skill of the farmers, big solid farming lads who had a lot of experience with horses - it was thought they’d make good soldiers.

“There were 70 locals in the first call-up, 20 were sent to the Boer War. Fifty were sent away because they were too wild and their horses were too!

“The Mounted Rifles were established, Eketāhuna and Districts wanted to have their own squadron and applied to Wellington. They were told to join Pahiatua or Wairarapa. But no, they wanted their own unit and re-applied, to be granted status as the Eketāhuna Mounted Rifles seven months later. They then became part of C Squadron Wellington Mounted Rifles Regiment in 1901.

“All were...